- Students with vision loss and blindness have completed building a wooden paddle board that's set to launch Saturday.
- A workshop is offered to students from all over the Big Bend.
- Watch the video above to see how they did it.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Six weeks of hard work pays off! I'm Kenzie Krueger in Panacea. I'll show you who built this special paddle board and why it means so much to those involved.
“The kids should be very proud.” That’s the reaction of a proud teacher. Dice Pickett is with Big Bend Maritime in Panacea.
She helped these students build this wooden strip paddle board. They partnered with Lighthouse of the Big Bend.
They help people with vision loss and blindness from neighborhoods across our area. This a project was made to help those in the program build this wood craft.
They offered the workshop to students all over the Big Bend and they would pick them up every other Saturday and bring them to the Maritime Center here in Panacea. About a dozen students helped build the paddle board from start to finish.
Pickett helped them do it, and says she saw them grow throughout the project, “they now have finished this boat. It’s ready to go in the water right now. They did every step of it, and they should feel very proud of their accomplishments.”
Natasha Hartsfield is also with Maritime Center and worked with the students. She tells me the students developed skills from this project that they can use in other parts of their lives. “It feels amazing to work with these kids and know that it is making an impact and that they’re gonna leave with new skills, new confidence, and understanding a whole new way of working in a team and in a wood shop.”
The students can take the tools they learned in the workshop and nail down skills in other areas of life. Which is something Pickett says makes her feel like she made an impact on her community.
“That makes us feel amazing by giving them that ability.”
Saturday the students and teachers plan to launch the paddle board in the water as a celebration for completing the project at Bottoms Landing.
